Troop Tags

What is a Troop Tag?

If one looks carefully at a Swiss service rifle, there is a good chance of finding a troop tag - a small, rectangular piece of paper listing the personal details of the soldier to whom it was issued. The idea was simply that, if the rifle was misplaced somehow, anyone who found it could check the tag, and be able to reunite it with the soldier in question. SBB, the Swiss national railways operator, stated in 2015 that their lost-and-found offices were processing an average of two rifles per month, found on trains across the country. Particularly in the pre-digital age (when the Army was also much larger and such cases were far more common), the presence of troop tags allows rifles to be expeditiously posted back out to soldiers, or to their units for later collection. On the current-issue Stgw. 90, the troop tag is contained in the base of the pistol grip, and the preceding Stgw. 57 had a waterproof panel on the underside of the buffer tube. However, on earlier, wood-stocked rifles, the tag was typically stored underneath the buttplate to keep it out of the elements, and could not be seen without unscrewing it. The early style of tag had a circular hole to one end, through which the screw could be inserted, to prevent the tag from falling out. 

Information Contained on a Troop Tag

Over time, the amount of information written on troop tags has changed - since the implementation of a digitised database of members of the Army, only the soldier's name, rank, and AHV (Social Security) number are required. Historically, the soldier's birth year, unit, and address would also be included, along with the rifle's serial number (typically written on the reverse). The tag would only be written in one language, that being whichever of the then-three national languages (German, French, or Italian) which the soldier had as his mother tongue. 

Names are written with the family name first, and given name second. 

Years of birth are written with just the last two digits of year, e.g. '35' instead of '1935'. As Swiss men are called up for service in the year in which they turn 20, one can determine the year in which the rifle was issued out (assuming - and it is worth remembering that this is not always the case - that the rifle was the first one given to the soldier in question during his Recruit School) by adding 20 to the birth year written on the tag. 

Units are written in abbreviated form. For more information, see below.

Addresses are TO BE COMPLETED.